1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an operation supporting system and an operation supporting method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In these years, it is demanding that the operation should be processed more efficiently, as the operation quantity increases. The efficiency of the operation is progressively promoted by reviewing and creating manuals of implementation process and utilizing the IT technologies. Under the circumstances, it is to be noted that people have to determine respective nonroutine tasks individually, but the nonroutine tasks are not sufficiently promoted. However, there is the increasing demand that multiple operations have to be processed in parallel in today's office. For example, one worker or one apparatus is made to implement a first process. While waiting for the completion of the first process, a second process is also started. When the first process is completed, the second process is interrupted or stopped to return to the first process. This type of multiplexing can be seen regularly. On the other hand, there is the problem in that the difficulty in scheduling delays the operation and applies overloads on the workers. This is because the operations tied up to time such as conference are increasing.
Generally, multi-window system, as represented by MS-WINDOW or X-WINDOW, is well known for the technique of carrying out multiple operations simultaneously. The user utilizes multiple windows when carrying out multiple operations, and sequentially selects the windows to perform multiple operations in parallel.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 7-56748 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 1) discloses an apparatus as described below. While the user is carrying out an operation with the use of a PC (Personal Computer), this operation is interrupted when another operation breaks in. The progress of the breaking operation is managed by confirming the operation status of the application, and then the apparatus notifies the user when the interrupted operation can be restarted.
There is the problem, however, that appropriate multiplexing or multitasking is not always realized, because each operator determines a combination of multiple operations to be multiplexed. More specifically, it is inefficient, if the operations are not multiplexed while the operator is implementing just a single operation. It is also inefficient, if the operator is implementing an inappropriate combination of multiple operations according to the operator's improper determination.